


Christmas Without You

by artificialmeggie (ohmymeggs)



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmymeggs/pseuds/artificialmeggie
Summary: Brock has just finished his one-woman show in Europe and is back home in Nashville alone except for Henry and Apollo. And it’s Christmas Eve.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 44





	Christmas Without You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mia_ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/gifts).



> This is my Secret Santa gift fic for my queen, Mia. 2019 gave me a lot of things, dear one, but my favorite thing is you. I am so grateful for you.

Brock is is Nashville.

Brock has just finished his one-woman show in Europe and is back home in Nashville alone except for Henry and Apollo. And it’s Christmas Eve.

He could have flown into Toronto; could have jetted home to spend the holiday with his mom and siblings and precious nieces and nephews who get taller every time he sees them, but if he’s really being honest with himself (and he’s going to start trying to do that more often in the new year, he’s decided), he wanted to be alone for a while.

It’s not that he isn’t grateful for everything that  _ Drag Race _ and Branjie and the newfound fame have given him—he is—but he just needs to decompress. To pet his cats and take a two-hour bath and  _ breathe _ for a minute.

But he’s done all that and now he’s scrolling through Instagram and Twitter and even Facebook and seeing all his friends posting family photos from their gatherings and he’s… Well, not lonely, exactly, but maybe he’s looking up red-eye flights to Toronto and thinking about being home in time to help his mom make pancakes for breakfast on Christmas morning.

He posts a few pictures with the cats on his Instagram story, mostly because he’s bored; maybe also because he wants the attention they always bring him (he’s a  _ drag queen _ . Attention whore comes in the job description). But what he doesn’t expect is a picture of José with a cat to show up in his DMs.

Brock stares at the screen, runs a hand over his stubbly face. (José always liked him a little scruffy. José himself is a little scruffy. It’s… not a terrible look on him.) There are lots of jokes he could make in reply—some, like always knowing that José was good pussy, are too obvious—and he’s lonely and soft and misses him just a little more than usual. So he switches to their text thread and instead of coming up with something clever and witty and (debatably) inappropriate, he opts for sincere.

__ _ Merry Christmas. J. Tell mom (and Avery) I said hello. _

The three dots start bouncing immediately and the messages appear in quick succession. José texts like he talks—in short bursts of energy, like he can’t keep his thoughts to himself. And Brock doesn’t know why he would.

_ Almost said I couldn’t believe you remember my mom’s cat’s name but of course you remember my mom’s cat’s name. _

__ _ Merry Christmas, B. _

__ _ Hang on ima facetime you _

And he does. Brock accepts immediately (of course he does; when will he not?) and José’s smiling face fills his screen.

“Hey, boo,” José says quietly and then, “Hang on. I gotta—”

It’s loud at his mom’s house (it had been when Brock had visited last summer too), and he can hear excited conversation in the background that he can’t quite make out. He got pretty good at interpreting José, but deciphering an entire house full of the chatter makes him a little anxious.

José knows this, so he’s walking down the hallway towards his bedroom, not really saying a lot; just smiling smiling smiling into the phone, and the way his eyes crinkle up at the corners should absolutely be criminal.

“Better?” Brock asks, resting his chin in his palm and smiling.

“Mmm.” José nods. “Now I might actually be able to hear your soft-spoken ass.”

There’s a beat of silence between them, but it isn’t uncomfortable; it never has been. Even when things were  _ really _ rough after Amsterdam and they didn’t speak for a week, even right after they broke up things were never  _ awkward _ . They’ve always talked easily, always been the person the other ran to when they needed to talk or to vent or just to be. Like now.

“Why ain’t you in Canada?” José asks, worrying his lip between his teeth.

Brock shrugs. “Got tired of flying.”

“Come on.” He isn’t buying it. Sees right through the excuse, just like he always does. No one has ever known Brock the way José does; no one’s ever been able to call him out ike José is. 

He loves it, aches for it. Misses it.

“Tell Miss Vanjie what’s going on in that pretty little brain of yours.”

Brock laughs, but there’s absolutely no humor in it. Why is it that his  _ ex _ of all people is the one person he can truly let his guard down around?

“I’m just so fucking  _ tired _ , J…”

José studies him for a moment, and Brock, ever awkward, yearns to fill the silence, but knows that it’s unnecessary. So he sits and stares at the pattern on his blanket and strokes Apollo’s fur (he likes that one really soft spot just behind his ears).

“You just wasn’t feeling the whole family shindig?” José asks softly, and for the first time, Brock realizes that he’s still holding Avery the cat in his lap.

“I love them,” Brock says, “but I thought I needed to be by myself for a little bit. Unwind, you know? And then I’ve got to go to Hawaii…”

“Bitch, we got the toughest lives, don’t we?” José cackles. “Europe! Hawaii!” He smiles, brown eyes twinkling even through Brock’s phone screen (he might be imagining that bit; recalling images from a happier time). Then his tone turns deep and soft. “But I get you.” Serious José.

The one Brock laid next to countless nights and listened while he sighed himself to sleep. This is his favorite José; this soft, uninhibited, tender side that the world so often doesn’t get to see. It’s such a change from the rough, upbeat Vanjie persona he puts on the majority of the time. Brock likes to think that soft José is still reserved (somewhat) for him; that few others get to see it, at least the way that he did, in the quiet, private, in-between moments they shared in hotels, apartments, beaches, clubs.

“I miss you,” Brock says suddenly, the words falling from his lips before he can stop them.

José turns his head up slightly, narrows his eyes just so at Brock in the way that drives him craziest. The tilt of his jaw, the angle of his nose… He wants to kiss him (has wanted to every day since they ended things—amicably, and on  _ really _ great terms—even though neither of them ever really gave up on what they had).

“Oh, baby,” is all José says, but he’s still tender, so Brock doesn’t think he’s ruined everything just yet.

They talk for a while longer, until José’s mother calls to him that the tamales are finished, and Brock knows not to come between José and his mother’s cooking. So he thanks him for his call, sends his love to the family, wishes him Merry Christmas once again, and ends the call feeling heavier and lonelier than before.

* * *

Brock falls asleep sometime after two a.m. (jetlag is a  _ bitch _ and he’s still trying to readjust), and he doesn’t dream at all. He usually doesn’t when he’s this tired. 

But he’s woken far earlier than he’d like by a persistent knocking on his apartment door. Which is odd because he doesn’t expect anyone or any packages. He even swipes through his phone to make sure he didn’t accidentally order UberEats again (that only happened  _ once _ and he was on night three of Ambien after a particularly rough stretch following DXP and Amsterdam, during that week when he and José hadn’t been talking at all). 

He pulls his robe around his waist and pads to the door in his sock-clad feet, grumbling the entire way about how he just wants to  _ fucking sleep _ and it’s  _ Christmas morning _ , for Christ’s sake.

It’s José. Standing there with his hands wrapped around the straps of his backpack, hip cocked to the side, lips pursed in a semi-grin.

“Umm, hi,” Brock says stupid, then runs a hand through his sleep-mussed hair because he is  _ certain _ he looks a mess and probably has morning breath, and even though this is hardly the first time they’ve seen each other first thing in the morning, this is definitely not how he imagined seeing José again after all this time.

“Merry Christmas, bitch,” José says and steps into the apartment like he belongs there. “I got you the best gift of all: me.”

Brock sighs and laughs all at the same time and wraps his arms around José to pull him into a tight hug. Because when he said he wanted to be alone he wasn’t lying, but he also wasn’t telling the complete truth.

He wanted to be alone with someone; someone who understands what it’s like to love what you do, but also wonder if it’s killing you. And José just gets it. Always has. Always will.

“You’re… Why are you here on  _ Christmas _ ?” Brock says in disbelief, hugging José tightly to his chest. “How did you talk your mom into letting you come? What?” He doesn’t have words, can’t make sense of the fact that José is standing in front of him, touching him, that he’s smelling him again after all these months apart.

José shrugs in his arms. “First off, Mary, I am a grown-ass man; my mama ain’t got no say in what I do. And B…” He pulls away, runs his thumb over Brock’s cheekbone, studies his eyes. “I could tell you was feeling some kind of way about being alone last night, and… I dunno, I guess maybe I just don’t like it when you’re sad. Thought maybe I could help.”

“I really did fucking miss you,” Brock says, pulling José back into his chest, tighter this time, lips ghosting against his temple. It’s not a kiss, it’s  _ not _ ; they aren’t there yet (and might not ever be again, but that’s not what he’s thinking about right now).

“I missed you too, baby,” José replies softly, tenderly, in Brock’s favorite way. “Now go put some pomade in your hair, put on one of those awful hoodies you like so much,” José says against his bare shoulder (and maybe Brock imagines it, maybe he really is sleep-deprived, but he would have sworn there was the impression of lips on the curve of his arm). “And I’ll buy you breakfast while you tell me about all the debowching you got up to in Europe.”

Brock frowns as he pulls away. “Debauchery?”

José waves him off. “Yeah, yeah, Mary, we  _ know _ you read books.” He snaps his fingers. “Come on. I didn’t come all this way to sit in your apartment and pet your pussies.” He winks.

Brock smiles, a true genuine smile for the first time in a few days, and walks quickly back into his bedroom.

He chooses a pair of jeans and his favorite black sweatshirt (and actually does run some pomade through his hair, mostly for the curls that will be unruly in the damp Nashville air if he doesn’t, but also because José likes the smell), and he brushes his teeth. 

Henry sits on the bathroom counter and watches him with thoughtful eyes.

“Best Christmas present ever?” Brock singsongs as he spritzes on his cologne. 

“Best Christmas present ever,” José confirms later that afternoon as they lie together on the couch, feet tangled, arms draped around each other, hearts beating in sync.

**Author's Note:**

> I spend way too much time on Tumblr. Come clown out with me @artificialmeggie


End file.
